Question of the Week: What Are Your Goals for 2011?

Image via Wikipedia

I know that New Year's resolution have a bad rap, and yet I still eagerly participate in this yearly ritual.

Perhaps it is because I want to have a fresh start each year. However, in breaking with tradition, I have come to see this less as stating resolutions and more as an exercise in yearly goal setting.

I often get started by writing down a list of my intentions for the next year.

I find having goals and intentions in mind helps me then create a list of action steps or targets that I can work on throughout the year. Now that I am living with chronic illness, I find that narrowing my focus to one of two goals per year, rather than an endless list of all the things I'd like to change in my life, makes this process simpler and ultimately more doable.

Of course much of my focus continues to be on my quest to create my best life despite chronic illness.

I realized I as was recording a recent video blog post that I already have a new goal in mind. I want to find the "sweet spot," a location inside my energy envelope where I have some energy left after each day. I want to find out if living in the "sweet spot" allows me to bank energy that my body can use towards healing. You can learn more about this concept by watching my Energy Envelope Tutorial.

Today I want to hear from you. Do you set New Year's resolutions for yourself? Do you take the time to do some goal setting or write down your intentions at the beginning of the year? Or was your resolution to give up making resolutions?

Kindly leave your response to the weekly question either here using the comment button or by going to the Oh My Aches and Pains! Facebook page.

I also want to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a happy and prosperous New Year, filled with love, hope and blessings.

Related articles

• How To Use Social Media To Achieve Your New Year's Resolutions (socialtimes.com)
• iPhone App Helps You Actually Keep Your New Year's Resolutions This Time (fastcompany.com)
• So are you going to be making some New Year's Resolutions for yourself or your company? [Mike Jones] (ecademy.com)

The Best New Year's Resolution

Image via Wikipedia

While researching information for a post that I will publish tomorrow, I ran across this prayer for the New Year featured on the left side of the picture at the top of this post. I read it and felt it would make a good saying to post on the bathroom mirror and read every morning.

A Resolve
for Every Morning of the New Year

I will this day try to live a
simple, sincere and serene life,
repelling promptly every thought of discontent,
anxiety, discouragement, impurity and self-seeking,
cultivating cheerfulness,
magnanimity, charity and
the habit of holy silence,
exercising economy in expenditure,
carefulness in conversation,
diligence in appointed service,
fidelity to every trust and
a child-like trust in God.

~From a calendar by Bishop John H. Vincent, 1909

I think this is one of the best New Year's resolutions I have ever read. What do you think?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Your Take: Your New Year's Resolution? (bargaineering.com)
• 5 Keys to Successful New Year's Resolutions (naturalbias.com)
• New Year's Resolution Generator (neatorama.com)